Primitive Buddhist scriptures describe four kinds of right effort – the sixth step of the Eightfold Path – designed to cultivate good and suppress evil. These are the effort to prevent evil from arising, the effort to abandon evil when it has arisen, the effort to produce good, and the effort to increase good when it has been produced. Right effort alone promotes realization of one’s goals.

In the initial stages of producing good or preventing evil, tremendous deliberate effort is essential. But as the effort becomes habitual it grows easier. In other words, willingness to make the effort to prevent evil from arising and to produce good is the crux. In religious faith, ethics, morality, politics, economics, health, or any other area of life, people who continue making right efforts are certain to advance step by step toward success and attainment of their goals.
Basic Buddhist Concepts